Preparing for the Population Pyramid Shift
What kind of an audience will marketers be looking at in the year 2050? If you look into Andrew Zolli’s crystal ball, the population pyramid in the United States will make a somewhat drastic shift in another 18 years.
Zolli, a futurist and the head of Brooklyn, NY-based research company Z + Partners, said at Experian’s Future of Information Summit on Jan. 18 that the pyramid will take on an hourglass shape, with fewer people in the “nondiaper demographics,” meaning that seniors and children will make up the majority of the U.S. population.
Ideally, Zolli said, the population pyramid is largest at the bottom, where the younger generation is, and tapers upward to senior citizens, which would make up the smallest segment of the population. But Zolli’s forecast suggests that companies will have to learn to market to the top of the pyramid.
“Marketers are used to marketing to the Britney Spears set, not the Angela Lansbury set,” Zolli said.
The pyramid shift will also change the composition of households. As more retired seniors outlive their money, they will be forced to move in with their children. As a result, three- and four-generation households will become more common.
Zolli said marketers are already taking these projections into consideration. For example, MetLife is peddling longevity risk insurance, which protects seniors from outlasting their money.
